De vos en de druiven 1876 - 1890

Curator: What strikes me first is how naive and storybookish it looks. The whole scene almost vibrates with gentle colour! Editor: That's quite a reaction! This piece, attributed to Gustave Fraipont and created sometime between 1876 and 1890, is called "De vos en de druiven" or "The Fox and the Grapes." It illustrates the famous Aesop fable, made popular in France by La Fontaine. See the text? Curator: Oh, I see it now! Clever! The fox staring, nose skyward, all forlorn longing. But it is very busy composition... three separate little scenes crowded in, that boy pointing, those old houses...it looks crammed! Editor: Each component builds upon the last! Fraipont is carefully constructing a narrative, using layers of symbols. Note the positioning of the grapes, seemingly out of reach for the fox. This represents the human condition – desire thwarted by circumstance. What could this possibly say about memory and our sense of identity? Curator: Maybe, and this is a shot in the dark here, maybe he's playing with what’s inside of us – you know, a hungry shadow of the fox wanting what cannot be, living amongst lovely buildings we admire in someone else's life! Oh dear, perhaps I’m reaching! Editor: Not at all! This image certainly emphasizes the psychological tension. Fraipont directs our eyes using subtle symbolism; our experience, I suspect, is meant to trigger self-reflection. And of course, there’s an overall aesthetic continuity here within those different spaces... the same colours run throughout, creating an odd sensation of unity! Curator: Well, after a closer inspection, I can say this piece contains a universal truth. We’ve all been that fox at some point in our lives – and, let’s be frank, perhaps many of us are *still* that fox. Editor: Precisely. Whether that is good or bad, depends on each one of us, right?